Santorum: ‘This Was a Big Night’ in Tenn., Okla., N. Dakota

With the election still too close to call in the key battleground state of Ohio, GOP hopeful Rick Santorum declared “this was a big night tonight” as the first results from Super Tuesday showed him winning the states of Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Dakota.

“We’re going to win a few. We’re going to lose a few, but as it looks right now we’re going to get at least a couple of gold medals and a whole passel-full of silver medals,” said the former Pennsylvania senator addressing supporters at his Buckeye State headquarters in Steubenville, Ohio.

Listing the six states that he has won since the raucous GOP nomination battle began with the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Santorum said that he has had to overcome “enormous odds” and has been outspent in every state that he won.

“Here in Ohio, still too close to call. But just like the folks here in Steubenville and throughout the Ohio valley — and all the valleys of this country that are the heart and soul of this country — they worked hard and overcame odds,” he said.

In a swipe at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Santorum said that he never passed a statewide government-run healthcare system as governor of a state, as Romney did.

“And now we find out this week not only did he pass it in Massachusetts, he advocated for it to be passed in Washington, D.C., in the middle of the debate on healthcare,” according to Santorum. “It’s one thing to defend a mandated top-down government-run healthcare program that you imposed on the people of your state. It’s another thing to recommend and encourage the president of the United States to impose the same thing on the American people, and it’s another thing yet to go out and tell the American public that you didn’t do it.”

In a more veiled swipe at former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Santorum pointed out that he won in the West, Midwest, and South “and we’re ready to win across the country,” a subtle attempt to portray Gingrich as a regional candidate who won only in South Carolina and tonight in Georgia.

Santorum also spoke about the threat Obamacare poses to the fabric of American society. He called Obama's program the beginning of the end of freedom in America.

“Once the government has control of your life, then they’ve got ya,” he declared, noting that "a little less than 50 percent" of Americans now depend on some sort of federal payment or government benefit.

“After Obamacare, it will not be less than 50 percent, it will be 100 percent. Now every single American will be looking to the federal government — not to their neighbor, not to their church, not to their business or to their employer or to the community or non-profit organization in their community,” Santorum explained. “They’ll be looking always to those in charge — to those who now say to you that they are the allocator and creator of rights in America.”